


New Year, New Bodies

by pandapresident



Category: Rune Factory 4
Genre: Bodyswap, M/M, Pre-Relationship
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2014-12-03
Updated: 2015-01-05
Packaged: 2018-02-28 01:37:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,104
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2714171
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pandapresident/pseuds/pandapresident
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's important to never consume anything Vishnal makes, even if it looks fine. In fact, it's probably more dangerous if it looks fine. The bachelors learn this lesson the hard way when they each wake up on New Year's Day in a body that's not their own. But being in Doug's body has much bigger repercussions for Dylas than simply not being able to reach the highest shelves any longer.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dougxdylas](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dougxdylas/gifts).



It had been a New Year's Eve like any other in Selphia. The guys congregated outside the castle as the clock hands inched closer towards midnight. Vishnal proudly handed out mugs of hot milk. The rising steam cut through the winter air.

“I made it all by myself!” he announced. 

“It'll be hot, Doug,” Dylas warned as his best enemy made grabbing motions towards the mugs. Though Dylas adored milk, he hung on until he'd seen Kiel take a sip before daring to taste it for himself. It paid to be careful when it came to Vishnal and cooking, even with something as simple as warming milk. The drink didn't taste of ashes and completely lacked the gritty texture Dylas associated with Vishnal's cooking. 

“Hey, when did you stop sucking at cooking, Vishnal?” Doug asked. Vishnal looked torn by the half compliment and rubbed his mug awkwardly. Arthur stared reprovingly at Doug.

“Maybe your resolution for the year could be to be more sensitive?” he said. 

“Huh? Why?”

“Idiot,” Dylas said, perfectly content.

The clock struck, signifying the finale of the year. The group stuck around until yawns and shivers overwhelmed the conversation. Arthur already had his work notebook out as they walked home.

“How can you even see what you're writing at this time?” Doug asked, craning up to see what Arthur was putting down in the book. Arthur raised the book from his view. “Hey! What's up with that?”

“Sorry, but many of my dealings are confidential,” said Arthur. 

“What's so secret about people buying stuff?” Doug nudged Dylas. “Grab it for me!”

“Grab it yourself,” Dylas said, barely stifling a yawn.

“He's taller than me, moron!” 

Dylas bristled. Sure, he'd forgotten that Arthur had the upper hand in the height department, but having his intellect called into question by Doug, of all people, always got to him. This was the man who couldn't even set up a fishing rod without a helping hand and once tried to forge silver into his boots while he was still wearing them.

“So get a step-ladder!” he snapped.

“Or you could be not a big jerk and just grab it for me!”

“How about you just grow up?”

“I'm a dwarf, dumb-ass!” 

They came to a stop outside Blossom's shop. Dylas turned towards Doug, giving him his full attention. For a second Dylas thought he was literally fuming with rage, but then he remembered that breath just looked like that in the cold air. 

“So's Bado and he's not a little shrimp,” said Dylas, stepping forward to show that he wasn't afraid of Doug, even if he did look like he might have been steaming mad a second ago. Doug took a step forward in retaliation.

“Shrimp are great! Not like mangy horses!”

“Who's a horse?” Dylas roared.

“You are, gelding!”

Dylas found himself close enough to Doug to see the slight chapping on his lips. He didn't know what to do now they were so close and he couldn't drag his eyes from Doug's lips. Was he supposed to punch him at this point? Usually they had someone split them up before it came to this point, but now they were alone. They could do anything they wanted, but the urges Dylas was feeling weren't violent ones. 

Icy cold water crashed around their shoulders. They spluttered, their reverie rudely broken, and Dylas pushed sodden strips of hair from his face to see what had happened. Blossom's window was open, framing an elderly woman holding a bucket.

“Granny!” Doug wailed.

“You can fight when people aren't trying to sleep!” she said. Dylas shrank back beneath her glare. “Now get to bed, both of you!”

“Ugh,” Doug said, slinking towards the door. Dylas was incredibly grateful that he didn't have to face Blossom in the morning. “'Night, Dylas. Happy new year.”

“Yeah,” Dylas said, his shivering more pronounced than ever. “Happy new year.”

He hurried back to Porcoline's, stripped out of his soaking clothes, shrugged on some dry pyjamas and jumped into bed. He wrapped the thick blanket around him, trapping the heat against his damp skin. 

It was time for a new year. He tried to think about the year ahead and what he'd like to achieve, but Doug's lips kept intruding on his thoughts. Dylas furrowed his brows, trying to figure out what it meant. Was Doug failing to take care of himself really that important? Should he get him some lip balm? Would that be weird? It was these worried thoughts that lulled him to sleep.

He woke up the next day feeling like he could conquer the world and, more importantly, that he could always leave some lip balm for Doug anonymously. That would surely fix both his worries and his worries that Doug might mistake the gesture for something it wasn't. He stretched out and sat up. 

Dylas blinked. The scenery didn't change.

He laid down and chewed his lip. He'd had such dreams before. Dreams where he was aware he was dreaming, that is, not dreams that he was in Doug's bed. Actually, he remembered, crinkling his eyelids tightly shut, he'd also had dreams about being in Doug's bed, but he tried not to think about those. And in any case, he was never alone in those ones.

Dylas took a deep breath. It was okay. This was just a dream. Dreams were not real and he wasn't responsible for them, so there was no reason to panic. He would wake up at any moment.

The air smelled of rice porridge. He didn't remember smelling anything in dreams before. He pinched his arm hard and opened his eyes again. This still wasn't the ceiling above his bed. He turned his head. Over there was the diary Doug was ridiculously protective of that Dylas had never succeeded in peeking inside. He could hear Blossom humming and the clinking of pots and pans in the kitchen. Which meant that he was, actually, in Doug's bed and this was not a dream.

He burrowed beneath the blankets, trying to hide from the reality long enough to get a grip on the situation, but the faint smell of Doug was trapped in there with him. What the hell could have happened? He could think of one and only one reason for him to be in Doug's bed and it was absolutely ludicrous, completely out of the question, would never happen in a million years.

Unless Doug asked, a sly voice in his head added. Dylas tried to crush it down. Now wasn't the time for that nonsense. He could figure out what happened later, or maybe never, but right now he needed to get away so that no-one else found out about this ever.

Going out the door was definitely not an option, he decided. Blossom was out there in the kitchen and he wasn't having any witnesses. He sat up and took stock of other avenues of escape. There was only the one, so he cranked open the window and seized it. 

The roof's shingles were rough beneath his bare feet and wobbled precariously, but Dylas would rather break his neck outside Doug's house than inside his bedroom, so he struggled down the roof and hopped to the ground. His feet screamed at this abuse but he didn't listen; he sprinted towards the restaurant and sanctuary.

He hadn't counted on Meg already being there, perched in a chair and tuning her harp. Her eyebrows shot up as they locked eyes.

“I can explain,” Dylas said, even though he absolutely could not.

“You, um, are aware that you're in your pyjamas, right, Doug?”

“I am?” Dylas said, grateful to the point of tears for this small mercy. He hadn't even thought to check that. If he was still dressed then he couldn't have done any bed-based activities with Doug, could he? “Hey, what did you call me?”

“Doug,” Meg said, slowly putting her harp down on the table. She didn't take her eyes off Dylas and seemed worried for some reason.

“Why are you calling me Doug?”

“Because it's your name,” she said, gently. “Why don't you take a seat and I'll go get Blossom?”

“My name is what?” Dylas asked, standing firm in the doorway. 

“Doug?” Meg suggested. “Hey, would you like me to get Dylas to keep you company while you wait? That's what you're here for, right?”

Dylas stared at her, then very carefully raised a hand to his head. His long hair was gone. From the length, it did, indeed, feel like it more belonged to Doug than himself.

“DOUG!” he screamed. Meg bolted past him out the door. He heard a scurrying noise from upstairs, quickly followed by his own body descending the restaurant stairs. Dylas could tell just from the way he leapt down the stairs two at a time that it was Doug inside it. It was an unintentional summoning, but it was pretty handy given the situation.“What did you do?” Dylas yelled.

“N-nothing!” Doug stammered, his cheeks flushed. “I just woke up! Like, a second ago! I didn't do anything!” He took a deep breath and rallied himself. “How do I know that you didn't do this, anyway?”

“I didn't do anything! Why would I want your body?”

“What, like I would want your body?”

“You can tell each other how much you want each other's bodies later,” Arthur said. Dylas and Doug both jumped, having been completely ignorant to anything other than themselves as they bickered. 

Dylas squinted at Arthur. Something felt off about him. Maybe it was the way his traveller's robes were unfastened over the chest, or perhaps it was the way he was holding his notebook more like a fan, but it was definitely very different.

“You're in the wrong body too?” Doug asked, sparing Dylas the humiliation of asking himself.

“What tipped you off?”

The doors burst open again behind them, revealing a pleased Leon and a very troubled looking Kiel.

“Hey, I found the others!” Kiel in Leon's body chirped. Arthur - or rather, Leon - beamed behind his notebook-cum-fan. 

“Ah, Kiel, I see you got my body. Have you shown your sister yet?”

“Not yet, Leon! We're trying to figure this out first.”

“I'm so sorry!” Kiel's body wailed, revealing it to be Vishnal inside. “Jones thinks it might have been my hot milk that caused this!”

“How the hell do you make hot milk do this?” Dylas exclaimed. Kiel's lip wobbled and Leon's arm wrapped around his shoulders.

“Don't be mean to me – I mean, to Vishnal!” Kiel scolded from Leon's body.

“I guess he still sucks at cooking,” Doug said, satisfied that things hadn't changed too much this year.

“Doug!” Kiel said. 

“This is too confusing,” Dylas said, shaking his head. “I'm going to bed.”

“Me too,” said Doug, heading towards the door.

“Put shoes on before you take my body outside!” Dylas shouted. Doug stopped, doubled back, and caught sight of Dylas's bare feet.

“You didn't!” he said, pointing. “Look, look at how he's abusing my body!”

There was a silence. As was frequently the case, Kiel was the one to break it.

“Did you two have your own sleepover last night without us?”

“Huh?” Doug asked. Dylas grew hot under the weight of Leon's knowing stare.

“Well, you're both here and in your pyjamas,” Kiel said. “So you must have both woken up here, right?”

“Hey, yeah,” said Doug, turning to Dylas. “Why are you in my PJs still?”

The doors swung open again, sparing Dylas from answering the question. Meg ushered Granny Blossom inside. As Blossom's eyes landed on him, her expression turned from confusion to anger. She hobbled over to him.

“Doug! What are you doing out here in your bed clothes?” So much for being spared from that line of questioning. 

“Oh, he's not Doug,” Kiel interrupted. “That's Dylas.”

“Leon, that isn't funny!” Meg said, rounding on him with a wagging finger. “Did you put him up to this?”

“I'm Leon,” said Leon, a wide grin plastered on his face. 

“Arthur, I thought you'd have known better than this,” Meg said, crossing her arms. “Finish buttoning up your clothes before anyone important comes!”

“No, it's true,” Vishnal said, stepping forward. “It's my fault.”

“Oh no,” Meg moaned, covering her face with her hands. “No, guys, stop it. I am too tired to deal with your pranks right now. Save it for Porco.”

“More importantly,” Blossom interrupted, poking Dylas in the chest, “Why did you sneak out like that?”

“Yeah, where do you get off getting my body into trouble?” Doug asked. Meg moaned at the new participant in what she still believed to be a prank.

“I, uh,” Dylas said, his heart thumping. Telling the truth – that he assumed Doug had seduced him and he wanted to escape without anyone finding out – was not an enticing prospect. If only he'd been less preoccupied with that threat, maybe he could have realised he wasn't in his own body and spared himself so much bother. But it was too late for that now. “I didn't think I could fool Blossom and didn't want to worry her.”

“Aw, that's so sweet!” said Kiel. “Well, I'll go back to the clinic and see how they're getting on with the antidote.”

“Antidote? Fooling? What's going on?” Blossom asked. Dylas decided he'd had enough.

“Doug, you explain,” he said, slinking towards the stairs.

“No way! Vishnal should explain, he caused it all!”

“I'm so sorry!” Vishnal wailed. 

“I can explain,” Leon said, stepping forward. “Dylas, why don't you go dress Doug?”

“What?” Dylas roared.

“He'll be needing clothes,” Leon said, hiding what Dylas was sure was a wicked smirk behind Arthur's notebook. “And I imagine all his will be a little short for his new body.”

“Fine,” Dylas mumbled. “Come on, Doug.”

Doug followed Dylas back to his room, muttering about not being that short, but Dylas was sure that he was just relieved to not have to face Blossom any longer. Dylas pulled an outfit out of his wardrobe and handed it to Doug. 

“There you go,” he said. “Boots are in the corner there.”

“Okay,” Doug said. The both looked at each other expectantly.

“Don't you need to be going now?” Dylas asked.

“Uh, don't you think I need to get changed first?” Doug said, rolling his eyes. “So, like, turn around or something.”

Dylas's face turned the colour of a freshly caught snapper. That had completely slipped his mind, but he didn't want to admit it.

“It's my body,” he argued. “Maybe you should be the one not looking while you get changed.”

“How would that even work?” Doug asked, turning away and unbuttoning his top. “Besides, it's not like it's anything I haven't seen before.”

“What?!” 

“In the baths and stuff, you dumbass,” said Doug, pulling on Dylas's shirt.

“You haven't seen everything,” Dylas muttered, sitting on his bed. Doug made a strangled noise and paused with his thumbs hooked into the pyjama bottoms. “But it's not like we have a choice, I guess.”

“Yeah,” said Doug, though he still didn't push down his pants. “The other guys got changed without any problems.”

“Right,” said Dylas. He wondered why it felt so weird, then, when he thought about Doug seeing his cock. And on the flip side, why he felt so hot when he realised that he'd probably have to see Doug's. He coughed and pretended to be interested in the window. “I wonder how long it'll take to fix.”

“No idea,” said Doug. “But Jones is pretty good, right? I bet we'll all be back to normal by lunchtime! Oh, you can look now, by the way.”

Dylas turned back, praying that he'd ceased blushing. It didn't really matter, though, since Doug was tugging at a zip on his sleeve. Dylas got up, took Doug's arm – no, his own arm – and zipped it up for him.

“Thanks,” said Doug. “You've got too many damn zips, you know that?” Dylas just shrugged in response. It was surreal seeing his body in front of him and wearing Doug's expressions. “Hey, I'll go grab you some clothes of mine and see if I can find out what's going on, okay?”

“Yeah, sure,” said Dylas. He was feeling increasingly stupid for assuming that he'd gone to bed with Doug after waking up in an unfamiliar place. It seemed like everyone else had cottoned on to the real issue at hand straight away, whereas he immediately felt guilty took action to hide the reason for that guilt.

He picked up a book and tried to distract himself from the uncomfortable train of thought. The words seemed to run on the page as if soaked with water. He tossed it aside as his door opened.

“Doug?” he asked.

“Knock knock,” said Arthur's voice. Dylas's shoulders slumped.

“Leon,” he said. Arthur would never dream of fake knocking after a door had already been opened. “What do you want?”

“Sorry I'm not your lover boy,” Leon said, stepping into the room. “I came to deliver some news.”

“I don't have a goddamn lover boy!”

“Mhmm,” Leon said, making himself comfortable on Dylas's bed. “Do you want the news?”

“I guess,” said Dylas. 

“Good or bad first?”

“Ugh.” Dylas quickly weighed up his options. “Bad.”

“The medicine to fix this is going to take a few days to brew.”

“What?” Dylas yelled. Leon looked completely unaffected by Dylas's rage. “Where's Vishnal? I'm going to wring his neck!”

“It sounds like you're ready for some good news.”

“Yeah.”

“So the rest of us had a big, complicated body swap, right? But you and Doug got a straight switch.”

“I'm not hearing the good news in that,” said Dylas, frowning.

“Jones says that only happens with two people who're really close.” The colour drained from Dylas's face as Leon's grin spread across his. “Aren't you lucky to have someone who loves you so much?”

Dylas pounced, intending to pound some sense into Leon, but Leon was clearly anticipating that reaction and leapt from the bed before Dylas could get him.

“You take that back!” Dylas shouted, jumping off the bed. Leon dashed down the corridor, roaring with laughter. Dylas raced after him, down the stairs, through Arthur's office and outside. He twisted his neck left and right, trying to figure out which way Leon had fled. 

“What're you doing out in my pyjamas again?” Doug yelled at him, a bag slung over his shoulder.

“Never mind,” Dylas said. “Where's Leon?”

“Who cares?” Doug said, pushing him back inside Porcoline's with his free hand. “Get dressed before you go outside in my body!”

“Ugh,” Dylas said, resigning himself to losing this battle. “I'm going to kill him next time I see him.”

“Why?” Doug asked, shrugging the bag from his shoulder and holding it out to Dylas.

“Um,” Dylas said, feeling the colour returning to his face in a hurry. “It doesn't matter. Did you hear how long it's going to take to get our bodies back to normal?”

By the way Doug's eyes lit up, Dylas immediately knew that he didn't. He wished he'd kept his mouth shut and left it to someone else to tell him.

“A few days.”

“No way!” Doug yelled. Dylas nodded sympathetically. “I'm going to kick Vishnal's ass for this!” He dashed out of the restaurant, leaving Dylas standing with the bag.

Dylas returned to his room and unpacked the clothes Doug had brought for him. True to his earlier optimism, Doug had only packed a single change of clothes. Dylas thought how like Doug it was to pack three socks and have none of them match as he pulled them on. He hesitated as he lifted up his top, then pulled it off in one fluid movement before he could over-think things any more. Quickly, he pulled on the tops Doug had brought, then moved to remove his trousers only to freeze up again.

He closed his eyes and pretended that everything was normal. He was in his own trousers and it was okay to take them off. He breathed out and removed them, his eyes still closed. He groped around for the underwear on the bed and, with some difficulty and hopping around with one leg in and one out, managed to put them on. Dylas opened his eyes again, feeling proud of his problem solving skills, and managed to pull on the clean trousers without stopping too long to study Doug's legs. It was just because it was weird to see something not his attached to him, he told himself as he ran a finger along the smooth, milky skin. It would be natural to be curious in a situation like that, right?

Dylas wasn't convinced by his own rationalising. He swallowed hard and prayed that Leon had been messing with him when he said it would take a few days to get their bodies back, but not because he was missing his own body. He felt guilty for inhabiting Doug's. Not because he would do anything to physically harm it, but because he was suddenly so curious about everything about Doug's body. 

He hurried downstairs to the restaurant where he would be too busy to be drawn into temptation. Meg swooped on him before he'd even reached the bottom step.

“Dylas, I'm so sorry about this morning!” she said. “I was so confused, but it must have been even more confusing for you and the other boys!”

“It's fine,” Dylas said, embarrassed by the degree of her concern. “I'm okay, really.”

“Are you sure? Is there anything I can do for you? Can I get you anything?”

“No, I just want to get to work.”

“Oh. Oh, dear. Porco decided to take the day off because of the confusion.” She frowned disapprovingly. “At least, that's what he said, but I think it's actually because Lin Fa's been giving out noodles to celebrate the new year.”

“Well, maybe I'll just clean or something,” Dylas said, desperately. Anything to keep his hand and minds occupied. “Porcoline has probably stuffed cakes in the shelves again.”

Porcoline had, indeed, stuffed cakes amongst the cookware in the shelves, along with onigiri, bars of chocolate and a forgotten, half-eaten loaf of bread that had seen much better days. Dylas threw them out with a shudder, not wanting to think about how long they'd been festering there. He scrubbed the unfortunate pots and pans that had shared living quarters with them, then the rest of the kitchen equipment. Meg kept practising in the corner, providing pleasant background noise, but neither distraction was sufficient to keep his mind from wandering places it shouldn't.

The sun had set long before he put away the last of the freshly cleaned dish-ware. Meg had left a couple of hours before after checking yet again if he needed anything. She'd seemed concerned about how seriously he was taking the cleaning and had suggested that maybe he go out and enjoy the rest of his day off, but he'd shot that down immediately. He felt too embarrassed to be around anyone else right now.

Instead, he'd kept on scrubbing everything until it gleamed like it was newly bought, but the endeavour felt like a failure to him. Doug kept cropping up in his head thanks to this body he was inhabiting. His feet - no, Doug's feet, that was the whole problem - were complaining from standing up all day, rather than getting to sit down behind a counter. The skin on Doug's fingertips crinkled so much quicker in water than his own did and his knuckles lacked calluses from punching things. Just as he'd been getting engrossed in his task, he'd go to push his hair away and be struck by how much shorter it was, and how much more fun it was to ruffle compared his own hair. Not that he'd ever felt the urge to ruffle his own hair, he realised. Then why did he get so engrossed in ruffling Doug's now?

He wiped his hands roughly on a dish cloth, wishing that his worries could be wiped away like dirt he'd cleaned up today. Instead he was facing a long night of tossing and turning as he worried about these weird feelings and urges. It wasn't particularly appealing, but he trudged up towards his bedroom. He sat on his bed, set to be good and confront his fears, when he spotted his fishing rod.

Minutes later he was throwing his fishing lure into the closest body of water. With nobody else around to scare them off, the fish were plentiful and lacked the wariness they adopted in daylight. He quickly worked up a decent haul that he felt quite proud of. Then, glinting in the moonlight, he spotted a pink sparkle. His eyes lit up. Dylas carefully aimed his line, barely daring to breathe lest he scare off the rare throbby snapper. A pebble whizzed past him, into the water, and the shadow wriggled out of sight. 

Another pebble hit his forehead as he turned to confront whatever had cost him the fish. His fists clenched around the fishing rod as he spotted his own body in Doug's window, arm poised to throw another stone.

“What the hell?” he yelled. Doug held a finger to his lips, then jabbed it at the window next to his.

“Don't wake Granny, pea-brain!” Doug hissed, cupping his hands around his mouth as though the barrier would stop his words from carrying on the wind to the adjacent room. “What do you think you're doing with my body?”

“Fishing,” said Dylas. “But given how bad you were at the last contest, I'm not surprised you didn't recognise it.”

“I know that! I meant what are you doing fishing when you should be asleep?”

“I couldn't sleep.”

“Yeah, well, I don't want a cold when I get my body back so go try again!”

“You gonna make me?”

Doug's scowl was replaced by a less familiar expression as he closed his window. Once again free of any distractions, Dylas crouched down to inspect the water. There was a chance, even if it was slim, that the fish might have returned now. 

The next thing he knew he was up in the air. Dylas flailed about but Doug had a firm grip on him along with an infuriating snigger. All his previous tender thoughts about Doug were doused as he tried to claw his way free.

“Put me down!” Dylas hissed, not wanting anyone to see him in this less than dignified position.

“Hell no! You'll just keep fishing until dawn.” Doug carried him upstairs and dropped him in his bedroom. “Now stay here and sleep.”

“Sleep where?” Dylas asked, folding his arms and leaning mutinously against the wall. He wouldn't admit it, but at least if he was with Doug then he couldn't get lost in his head or do anything he'd regret later. Doug pulled out spare bedsheets and set them on the floor. 

“Next problem?” he asked, still beaming from his earlier success.

“Ugh, fine,” Dylas said, but Doug handed him a pair of pyjamas before he could get settled down. 

“Change,” he ordered. “You got fishy smells over those ones.”

“You don't complain about fish smell when I get you shrimp for your damn tempura,” Dylas said, pulling his shirt off and casting it in the laundry basket Doug was holding out to him.

“Yeah, but you said it's the wrong season for them now,” Doug said, shrugging. 

“Oh, yeah!” Dylas said, reaching into his bag. He held out the fish he caught until Doug unwillingly took them. “Put them in the fridge. There's some sardines for Blossom.”

“What about me?” Doug complained, but he left to put the fish away.

“We literally just went over that,” Dylas said, rolling his eyes as he removed his trousers without thinking. He stepped into the pyjama bottoms that Doug had left out for him and caught an eyeful of exactly what he'd been trying to avoid seeing.

“So figure out some more fish recipes I'd like,” Doug said, re-entering the room without Dylas noticing. He hurriedly pulled up the pants, his heart pounding. Doug didn't look at him as he switched off the light and got into bed.

“Uh,” Dylas said, his brain completely ill-equipped to think of food. He settled down in the sheets Doug had laid out for him. “Like what?”

“If I knew that, you wouldn't have to figure out the recipes, would you?” 

“I guess,” Dylas said, though he would later realise that taking Doug's word on how any meal should be prepared would be unwise unless he had a few sacks of rice that needed to be disposed of. He felt far too light-headed in the moment to remember how rarely Doug cooked and his ideas about portion sizes. “Well, good night.”

“Night,” Doug said. 

Uneasy silence fell between them, though Dylas could think only of what he'd glimpsed. It seemed that it didn't want to be forgotten, either, judging by the way he could feel it growing in his pants. Dylas turned away from the window, not wanting to risk Doug seeing how flushed he was even in the safety of moonlight. He bit his lip and tried to think of something else, anything else. 

“Dylas?” Doug said, suddenly.

“Yeah?” Dylas said, relieved to be saved from his thoughts.

“Don't...” Doug broke off. Before Dylas could ask what it was he shouldn't do Doug continued, his voice barely even a whisper. “Don't tell anyone, okay?”

“Tell anyone what?” Dylas asked, figuratively and literally in the dark.

“About, about,” Doug stuttered. “You know. My size.”

“I think everyone knows you're a dwarf,” Dylas said, stupidly. Doug chucked a pillow at his head. “Hey!”

“Goddammit, that's not funny!”

“I don't know what you're talking about,” Dylas said, stumped by the conversation. 

“You're going to make me spell it out?”

“Or hint at it better. This is why we lost at charades.”

“No, we lost because you chose the word 'sealapants',” Doug huffed.

“Coelacanth,” Dylas said, automatically. “How was I to know they're a lot rarer these days? I'd only lived here a month then!”

“Yeah, well, I was talking about my dick,” Doug said, his words bumping into each other as he hurried them out of his mouth. “So don't tell anyone, all right?”

Dylas paused for a moment, aware that they were on some delicate territory. On the one hand Doug, for some reason, thought there was something wrong with his equipment. On the other, Doug was incredibly wrong but would freak out if Dylas told him why he thought that. 

“You think it's not big enough?” he said, slowly.

“Uh, obviously,” Doug mumbled. “I mean, I've seen what you're packing.”

“You have?” Dylas asked, pulling his sheets up higher. Maybe Doug wouldn't freak out after all.

“I woke up this morning and I wasn't just pitching a tent, I was pitching a fucking circus,” Doug said bitterly. “Which felt great until I realised it wasn't my body.”

“I don't get what's so important about the size,” Dylas mumbled.

“Then don't go telling anyone about mine,” said Doug. 

“I wasn't going to!” Dylas said, completely truthfully. He'd be delighted to wipe all his thoughts about Doug's dick. 

“Yeah?” Doug sighed. “Okay, I'm going to have to trust you, I guess. But tell anyone and I will kill you, right?”

“Fair enough.”

“And you'll have to cook for me for a year.”

“Okay.”

“Then I'll kill you again.”

“Got it. Night, Doug.”

“Night, Dylas,” Doug said, content once more. He was soon snoring away, blissfully unaware that their discussion had made it even harder for Dylas to sever from the sexual urges that had been plaguing him all day.


	2. Chapter 2

Dylas awoke after a night of restless sleep. Something in his dreams had bothered him, he knew that much, but what had happened in them eluded him more and more the harder he tried to remember the details. 

The smell of cooked sardines penetrated from the kitchen into the Doug's room, but Doug was oblivious to the overwhelming scent. He was firmly asleep, snoring so loudly that Dylas wondered how either of them had managed to get any rest. Dylas shook his arm, gently at first, then roughly as Doug refused to rouse. Doug turned away from him, still sleeping soundly. Dylas sighed. It was just like Doug to be stubborn even when he was asleep. He pinched Doug's nose closed, but he just opened his mouth to breathe instead and rolled further from him.

“Goddammit, Doug,” Dylas breathed, climbing on the bed so that Doug couldn't escape. He took Doug by the shoulders and shook him again. “Wake up, you son of a-”

“Mrr?” Doug said, his eyelids finally separating. “Dylas? Dylas.” His eyes closed again. “Go back to sleep.”

“Doug?” Blossom called from outside the room. “Are you ready for breakfast?”

“In a minute,” Doug mumbled, pulling his pillow around his ears.

“How am I meant to get out without Blossom knowing I slept over?” Dylas hissed, as close to Doug's ear as he could get. Doug's eyes opened fully and he sat up.

“Uh, never mind!” he called to Blossom, his voice shaking. “I don't feel great today, so I think I'll skip breakfast.” Doug cast his gaze around the room just like Dylas had done the day before, searching for a handy escape hatch.

“What about Dylas? Would you like some breakfast, dear?” They both froze.

“What?” Doug said. Dylas mouthed the word “idiot” at him. Doug stuck out his bottom lip and shrugged.

“It was very nice of you to bring fish,” Blossom continued. “I hope Doug didn't make you sleep on the floor.”

“It's your fault she knows!” Doug hissed at Dylas. 

“You were the one who dragged me here!” Dylas whispered back. “And the one who complained about the fish smell!”

“Ugh, whatever,” Doug said, rolling his eyes. He raised his voice. “Yeah, we'll both be through for breakfast in a bit.”

“Very good,” Blossom said. They listened as her footsteps retreated from the door.

“Your stomach ache cleared up fast,” Dylas said, standing up and opening Doug's wardrobe. A pile of clothes toppled out. “How do you find anything in this mess?”

“I'm not missing breakfast if I don't have to!” Doug snorted. He reached around Dylas, deftly located clothes and dropped them on Dylas's head. “Hey, what am I going to wear today?”

“You should have thought of that yesterday,” Dylas said, pulling the clothes off his head. 

“You didn't either!”

“Yeah, but it worked out for me,” Dylas said, grinning wickedly.

“Grab me some after you have breakfast,” Doug said, sitting on his bed. “Then we can go get a bath.”

“Who said I wanted to go anywhere with you?”

“I can always carry you there, you know.” 

Dylas paused in buttoning up the shirt he'd been given and frowned at Doug.

“I don't abuse my height like that,” he said accusingly.

“Yeah, but I've got to make up for years of being short and I don't have a lot of time to do it in,” Doug said. He grinned. “Let me know if you need a hand reaching anything in the restaurant.”

“Asshole,” Dylas said, resuming buttoning his shirt. 

“Height is wasted on the heighted,” Doug said. Dylas raised an eyebrow. “You know? Like, 'youth is wasted on the young'.”

“'Heighted',” Dylas repeated with a smirk.

“Whatever!” Doug said, standing up suddenly. “Get dressed faster; I'm starving.”

“When are you not?” Dylas mumbled. Undressing – beyond the shirt stage, at least – in front of Doug seemed to make him feel embarrassed lately, even though it wasn't his body he was displaying. “I'm not forcing you to hang around.”

“Less sassing, more undressing,” Doug said, pulling Dylas's trousers down.

“Hey!” Dylas said, recoiling from Doug and scrambling to get into a clean pair of pants.

“It's my body,” Doug said, perfectly reasonably. “Ready at last? Let's go!”

He ushered Dylas into the kitchen before taking the seat at the head of the table. Blossom smiled at them as they came in and poured two cups of tea. Dylas slid into a seat next to him.

“Did you sleep all right?” Blossom asked him as she passed him a steaming cup. He nodded as he clasped the cup.

“What about me?” Doug demanded. “You never ask if I sleep okay!”

“I hardly need to with how loudly you snore!” she said, getting up to attend to the oven. Dylas laughed. 

“I don't know how I slept through it,” he said.

“There have been times that I haven't been so lucky, let me tell you!” she said, pouring out a bowl of porridge. She set it in front of him. To his surprise, it was his favourite dish rather than the plain rice porridge he'd been expecting. “I understand that milk porridge is your favourite?”

“Uh, yeah,” Dylas said, feeling humbled again by her kindness, but also bewildered. “How did you know?”

“A little birdie might have said something once or twice,” she said with a smile. “Usually before your birthday, accompanied with some horrible language as it tried to cook it.”

“I never got milk porridge from my birthday,” Dylas said, mystified.

“I did say that it tried!” She chuckled.

“Ahem!” Doug said, his face oddly pink. “Don't you have, like, a thing to go to? Away from here? So that the two of you can't keep laughing at me together?”

“Not at all,” she said, spooning out another bowl for Doug. “I'd be happy to sit with you two while you eat.”

“Really?” Doug asked, dismay written all over his face.

Dylas tucked into the bowl in front of him. It turned out that Blossom was a fine cook. She'd never be in the same league as Porcoline, but she hadn't dedicated her life and soul to food like he had. He basked in the glow of warmth from his food and the familial atmosphere.

Doug finished scoffing his food first and badgered Dylas to hurry up, clearly eager to get Blossom and Dylas apart before more jokes at his expense could happen. Blossom turned down Dylas's offer of help with the cleaning up, to Doug's palpable relief. After Dylas returned with a fresh set of clothes for Doug, Doug changed in a flash and pushed him back out the door again to go to the baths. 

“Now Blossom is saying what a good grandson you'd make!” Doug complained as they walked over to Bell, Bath and Beyond. “She's going to expect me to offer to do the washing up now!”

“You should be doing that anyway!”

“Suck up!”

“Lazy oaf!”

They exchanged light-hearted insults until they arrived at the bath's front desk, when Doug elbowed   
Dylas to shut up.

“It might be a bit crowded in the men's baths right now,” Lin Fa warned them. “The boys came straight from a sleepover last night.”

“They had a sleepover too?” Dylas asked and instantly regretted asking. Doug kicked him. 

“That's what I heard! But how come you weren't there?” she asked, curiously gazing at them.

“Gotta go!” Doug yelped, pushing Dylas towards the bath room. “We need to get in the bath right away!”

“Oh my,” Lin Fa said, raising a hand to her mouth. “Did you two get very dirty together?”

Dylas stared at the floor, wishing it would split in two where he stood and swallow him up. Doug shoved him into the men's bath section. They were greeted by a whoop from – who else – Leon. 

“I told you they'd be together,” Arthur said, towelling himself off. He was still in Vishnal's body, but seemed unconcerned about it. 

“I didn't want them to feel left out!” Vishnal said, his eyes wide. “I still think that we should have gone to look for them.”

“Yeah, you should have!” Doug said, acting offended. “I had to stop this idiot fishing all night by myself!”

“I'm sure you handled it just fine by yourself,” Arthur said, polishing a pair of glasses. He positioned them carefully on his nose. 

“Does Vishnal need those?” Dylas asked, confused.

“I feel naked without them,” Arthur said. He was wearing only a towel. Dylas wondered if he could dress himself without having to remove them again.

“I wonder why Doug and Dylas were the only ones to swap bodies directly,” Kiel said, perching very primly in Leon's body. Dylas looked at Leon in a panic, but Leon wouldn't meet his eyes.

“Timing,” Arthur said, leaning against the wall and not seeming in any hurry to dress again. “Jones has a theory that they must have drunk the potion a little before or after the rest of us.”

“What?” Dylas roared. Doug threw a sodden sponge at his back.

“What are you yelling about?” he asked. Dylas squirmed as he saw that Doug had undressed his body and there were soap suds over his chest. “And get cleaning my body!”

“Leon said-” Dylas began, but stopped. “Never mind.”

Arthur questioned Leon with a raise of an eyebrow.

“Oh, I was just messing with Dylas yesterday,” Leon admitted without a hint of shame. “He makes it so easy.”

“What did he say?” Doug asked Dylas, who slumped in the changing area. 

“Nothing important,” he said. His chest hurt and he didn't know why. He didn't even feel as uncomfortable getting changed as he had before; everything felt numbed in comparison to the ache in his heart.

The other guys conversed as they soaked, but the conversation washed over Dylas, to whom it was unintelligible as the bubbling of a river brook. Gradually their number dwindled and Dylas found himself out of the water and getting dressed again with no conscious decisions made on his part. Then he was out again in the early spring air, which felt a lot colder and harsher on his skin than it had before he soaked in the bath.

Doug stuck to his side as he walked to the restaurant. Dylas nodded along as Doug chattered about something. The occasional word managed to swerve into his ears but the majority wafted over him like the clouds above, providing a pretty backdrop but no substance. Not that the words were pretty, mind you – Dylas couldn't hear them but he knew Doug well enough that anything coming out of his mouth would be blunt and roughly thrown together without any thought paid towards notions like formality or elegance. Just like his own way of speaking, now he actually thought about it.

His jaw dropped as it hit him how easily he could describe how Doug spoke and just how much of what Doug said stuck in his head. He stopped cold in his tracks while his heart and brain were harder at work than they'd ever been before. 

“Whoa, Dylas!” Doug said. His voice sounded distant even though Doug was standing right beside him. He felt Doug take his arm. “You've gone seriously pale. Do you need to go to the clinic or something?”

“I dunno,” Dylas said, careful not to meet Doug's eyes. The clinic was unlikely to have anything that could fix the root of his problem but going there might provide a good cover for what was actually bothering him. 

Doug swept a hand under Dylas's fringe. Dylas swallowed, his eyes still locked on the floor. Doug pulled his hand away. 

“You don't feel like you've got a fever or anything,” he said. “Maybe you should just go lie down for a bit?”

“No, they'll be needing me in the restaurant,” Dylas said, stepping backwards away from Doug. Spending even a minute lying in bed, with nothing to do but dwell on how completely he had managed to mess up his life, was the worst thing he could imagine. If Doug ever found out that Dylas had some kind of romantically-tinged feelings for him he'd either freak out or never stop laughing. Meg would constantly look at him with pity while he tried to work. Porcoline might propose to him. Arthur would – well, Dylas didn't know that, but he suspected that it wouldn't make life any better for him. Maybe he'd be uninvited from all future sleepovers. Vishnal would say that it was mean, but Leon would narrow his eyes and ask if Vishnal wanted to be the one sleeping next to him, then? And Doug would groan and complain about how Dylas had his body that one time, and what must he have done to it then? They'd all nod, except for Kiel, who would be too busy wondering what they could mean.

“Screw that!” Doug said, wrapping an arm around Dylas's shoulder and guiding him away from the restaurant. “You're going to the clinic.”

“I'll be fine!” Dylas insisted, but Doug's grip was firm and Dylas felt weak. 

“Do it for me, okay? So I know that my body's all right.”

“Okay,” Dylas conceded, the fight leaving his body as his shoulders slumped forward. At least in the clinic there would be other people around. He could ask Nancy about how she met Jones, that'd ensure a steady stream of conversation until he was deemed better.

Doug escorted him to the clinic, barging through tourists with no regard for Arthur's rules about making them feel welcome in the city. His grip on Dylas never wavered. He kicked the clinic door open.

“Oh no!” Xiao Pai cried, clutching her head in her hands. “They're already here and angry!”

“What are you talking about?” Doug said, looking around. “Jones, I need you to look at Dylas.”

“Is that blood?” Dylas asked, noticing a deep red liquid trickling down Xiao Pai's wrist. “And what's that mess on the floor?”

Broken glass was familiar to him, having lost a few dishes in a tug of war between him and Porcoline, but the lumpy mess it was mixed in with was less so. 

“I'm so sorry!” Xiao Pai wailed. “It was an accident, yes?”

“If it's anyone's fault, it's mine,” Jones said, laying a hand on Xiao Pai's shoulder. She turned to look at him and he quickly stepped back as he noticed the smear of blood on her face. “Er, Xiao Pai, would you mind going to the baths? I think Nancy went there with Dolce. One of them should be able to clean you up...”

“Understood!” she said. She wasted no time hurrying out of the door.

“Yeah, well, we don't care about that,” Doug said, nudging Dylas forward. “Find out what's wrong with Dylas, will you? I can clean up.”

“Ah,” Jones said. Dylas lifted his gaze from the floor to Jones's face. There was something deeply troubling hiding in that one little syllable. “I think you might care about that, actually. When I was startled by Xiao's injury, I moved back a little hastily and knocked over the medicine that was brewing behind me.”

“Uh huh,” Doug said, tapping his foot. “But there's no use crying over spilt medicine, so get healing Dylas!”

“Wait, wasn't the medicine we need still brewing?” Dylas said. Jones nodded.

“What?” Doug yelled. He crouched on the floor and tried to scoop up the gel in his hands. “It's okay; I'm sure we can just rinse it off or something!”

“No, it is certainly no longer fit for consumption,” Jones said. He took Dylas's arm and lead him towards the examination area. “You do look rather pale, Dylas. Have you had a shock?”

“Uh, yeah, it's that you lost our medicine!” Doug shouted. “How long is it going to take now?”

“Please be quiet, Doug, I'm sure waiting an extra day or so won't kill you,” Jones said, not taking his eyes off Dylas. He pressed cold fingers against Dylas's wrist. 

“I'm not waiting!” 

Dylas looked at Doug, about to joke about Doug eating off the floor like an animal, but to his horror his joke was close to reality. Doug licked some of the goo from his hand, trying to skirt around the broken glass with his tongue.

“Idiot!” Dylas yelled, pulling his arm from Jones and slapping Doug's hand to get the mixture off. “Even if it wasn't full of dirt and glass, the medicine wouldn't be ready yet!”

“Oh yeah,” Doug said, looking sheepish. “Sorry.”

“Did you ingest some of it?” Jones asked, looking gravely at Doug over his glasses. 

“Maybe a little?” 

Jones sighed and pointed to one of the cots in the corner of the room.

“Then you'd better stay in here for observation,” he said. “I have no idea what that might do to you now it's been polluted.”

“Aw, man,” Doug moaned, but he settled down on one of the beds. “It was only a tiny bit!”

“It hadn't yet been diluted,” Jones said, turning his attention back to Dylas. “Say ah, please.”

“Ah,” Dylas said, uncomfortably aware of Doug pulling faces at him behind Jones's back. Jones shone a light in his mouth.

“Tonsils look fine. Lift up your top a little, I'll listen to your heartbeat.”

Dylas complied, glaring at Doug as he continued to make ridiculous faces. Jones pressed his stethoscope to his chest and then to his back, making non-committal noises as he moved between them. 

“I can't see anything else unusual,” Jones said at last. “When did you start feeling out of sorts?”

“Yesterday,” Doug butted in. “He's been all quiet and moody since then.”

“I have not!” Dylas said.

“He didn't even come by the baths for free noodles!” Doug said, dropping the titbit like the decisive piece of evidence in a trial. 

“Jones doesn't care what you think,” Dylas said, folding his arms over his chest. 

“Actually,” Jones said, “People you're close to can be better at noticing that something's amiss than you are, I've found.” Doug beamed triumphantly. “Anyway, the colour's come back to your cheeks and you seem normal again now. You should be fine to go.”

“Dylas gets to leave and I have to stay?” Doug protested. “No fair!”

“Utterly fair,” Jones said. “Hopefully this will teach you a valuable experience about not taking medicine that isn't prescribed to you.”

“It was gonna be prescribed to me!”

“That doesn't count.”

Dylas slipped out as Doug continued arguing why he shouldn't have to stay in the clinic. He wandered back to Porcoline's, more out of habit than conscious choice, and wondered what he would do now. He couldn't keep having feelings for Doug beyond rivalry and friendship, but how could he stop them? The town had grown since he had first inhabited it but it was still too small to avoid anyone for any length of time. Two options remained: to remove his feelings or to remove himself from the situation. 

He opened the restaurant door and was hit by the unmistakeable smell of freshly baked bread. Neither Meg nor Porco were around yet. He hurried over to the oven and took out the loaves. Arthur had once shown him a very rare item that had come by his store.

“Can you guess how much this is worth?” Arthur had asked. It was a game he would sometimes play with his shipments when Dylas brought him meals. Dylas was always terrible at it. He had looked over at the item, a bottle with an offensively cheery logo, and shrugged.

“No idea. Less than a glitter snapper.”

“You're off by, oh, a few million,” Arthur said, smiling as he wrapped the bottle carefully in paper.

“What?!” Dylas felt for a second how poor Xiao Pai must constantly feel; hyper-aware of his body and terrified of the damage he might accidentally do with it. What if he'd tripped while entering the room? Porcoline gave him a decent wage but he'd never be able to pay off something like that. “Why's it so valuable?”

“It's a love potion,” Arthur explained. “Make someone drink it and they get rather more amorous towards you.”

“That's terrifying,” Dylas had said, shrinking away from Arthur and the dangerous bottle. 

“I shouldn't worry about it,” Arthur said, stowing the bottle in his desk. “It's very rare to encounter it. This is only the second time I've seen one.”

“Yeah?” Dylas said, relaxing a little.

“Indeed. It's very hard to make, even if you can locate the ingredients.”

Unfortunately for Dylas, he only remembered the comment about the ingredients after he had wolfed down the entirety of the day's supply of recipe bread. Not that it mattered; he stopped learning new recipes several loaves ago, but he'd persevered just in case some useful scrap of knowledge slipped through. His stomach protested at the abuse, but Porcoline's arrival in the kitchen meant that there was no time to worry about that.

“Don't eat uncooked rice!” he yelled, snatching the bag from Porcoline's hands.

“It's quality assurance!” Porcoline said, but Dylas had heard all his excuses. 

“The ingredients are fine. Cook them so that the customers will have something to eat!”

“And moi too, I hope!”

“Not if I can help it,” Dylas said, hanging close by as Porcoline set to work. He scrutinised every movement Porcoline made, snatching spoons out of his hands when they had finished being used and whisking food out of the oven when it was done. As customers started to file in it became harder to ensure that the food wasn't going down Porcoline's gullet rather than to the customers' tables but Dylas did his best. Doug's height was actually advantageous at times as he could duck beneath Porcoline's arms if necessary and get the plates out to the customers before the chef had time to react to this new technique. 

The pain in his stomach persisted and seemed to intensify as he worked, forcing him to take a moment out here and there until the worst of the cramps passed. As the day wore on the breaks started overtaking the amount of time that he spent working and Meg grew concerned.

“Dylas, is something wrong?” she asked.

“I'm...fine...” Dylas moaned, clutching his stomach. It felt bloated. He knew that eating that many loaves of recipe bread probably wasn't wise, but surely it wasn't normal to react like this? His loyalty to Porcoline fought against his illness, however, and he forced himself to stand normally.

“You are not fine!” Meg scolded. “Go to the clinic right now!”

“But,” Dylas said, his voice feeble. Meg didn't let him finish.

“Now!” she repeated.

Dylas stumbled out of the restaurant, barely able to stand up straight, and made his way back to the clinic. He wasn't sure how he was going to explain returning there to Jones, not with a completely different set of symptoms, but to his relief it was Nancy who was fielding the front of the clinic when he got there.

“My stomach is killing me,” he moaned by way of explanation. Nancy cooed sympathetically and led him to one of the beds in the back. Doug perked up as he approached, swinging into a sitting position to watch the diagnosis.

“Missed me so much you got sick just so you could come back, huh?” Doug asked. Dylas didn't dignify the question with an answer.

“You lie down for a bit,” Nancy said, feeling his forehead as he sat down. “When did it start?”

“About the time we opened up the restaurant,” he said. 

“And how is your stomach killing you?”

“It feels like of scrunched up,” he explained, removing his shoes and lying down on the bed. “It seems to have swollen, too.”

“Uh huh,” she said, nodding along. “Have you eaten anything unusual today?”

“I, uh,” Dylas said, feeling both guilty and ridiculous, “I might have eaten a bit of bread.”

“Gross!” Doug interjected. “Don't go putting that crap inside me!”

“Hmm,” Nancy said. “Doug, does eating bread usually result in these symptoms for you?”

“Can't remember; haven't eaten it since I could say no,” Doug said, shrugging. “I wouldn't put it past that spongy crap to make me ill as well as tasting like sick, though.”

“It might be best if you avoided it for the time being then, Dylas,” Nancy said. “You can rest here or rest at home, whichever is comfier for you.” Dylas attempted to set up but fell back down with a whine. “Here it is, then! Do you have enough pillows there?”

“Yeah, the bed's fine,” Dylas said. “Sorry to be a nuisance.”

“I guess I can forgive you,” Doug said. Nancy laughed.

“I'll just be in the front, so holler if you need anything!”

“Hey, Dylas,” Doug hissed. Dylas turned his neck to look at Doug, who was furtively pulling back his sleeve. “I didn't want to say anything in front of Nancy in case she freaked out, but take a look at this.”

He held out his wrist, which had patches of fuzzy pink fur sticking out of it. Dylas gasped in horror. 

“So that's not normal for you, right?” Doug whispered.

“No, of course it's not!” Dylas hissed back at him. “Tell Nancy at once or I will!” Doug's serious expression crumpled as he started laughing. “What are you laughing about? When I can sit up again, I'm going to kick your ass for this!”

“You're so freaking gullible,” Doug said, wiping away a mirthful tear from his eye. “Relax, it's just some furpy fluff I had in my pockets.”

“You asshole,” Dylas grumbled. “Couldn't you do something more useful than messing with me while you were stuck here?”

“Like what, thumbing through the medical textbooks?” Doug asked. “No thanks. Hah, but I thought that not having matching fur would be a giveaway for sure!”

“Yeah, yeah, laugh it up,” Dylas muttered, wondering why he had to develop feelings for such a jerk. “Like you'd be able to get your hands on any matching fur.”

“Oh yeah, your monster form drops it, right?” Doug said, thoughtfully. “It'd be better if I didn't go beat it up.”

“Like you could even if you wanted to!”

“I could! But I don't want to.”

“Yeah, right,” Dylas said. “So try it. After you get your body back.”

“I can't!” Doug said, crossing his arms.

“Exactly!”

“No, I can't because then it won't like me any more, will it?”

“I'm sure it doesn't like you now,” Dylas said, closing his eyes. The bickering was actually a decent distraction from the pain in his stomach.

“Shows what you know!” Doug said. “I've been giving it the biggest carrots out of the shipments we get in and now it's stopped electrocuting me.”

“What are you doing that for?” Dylas asked, so surprised by the admission that he opened his eyes again to look at Doug. He was a little annoyed, too, that Doug was giving away these prime vegetables.

“Aw, shit,” Doug said, his face falling. “I didn't mean for anyone to know. Not yet.”

“Yet?”

“I wanted to tame it so I could ride around town and annoy you,” Doug said, perching his head in his hands and looking morose. “You would have been so pissed; it'd be great.”

“I would not,” Dylas lied. “It was a waste of your time to try.”

“Yeah, you would, 'cause I was going to put its mane in pretty little bows.” Dylas shuddered and Doug sniggered. “See? It would have been amazing!”

“And now it's ruined, so you can give up on that plan.”

“Nah, I think I'm going to keep at it,” Doug said. “And whoop your ass at the next monster tournament with your own monster form!”

“Oh, no, you won't!” Dylas yelled.

“Keep it down in there!” Nancy called. 

“I'll go there tomorrow and kick its ass,” Dylas said, lowering his voice. “So all your hard work will be ruined!”

“You can't!” Doug said, scandalised. “I've been feeding it for months!”

“Then it'll be another few months before it even considers tolerating you again, won't it?” 

“I wasn't going to do this,” Doug said, sticking a hand in his pocket and riffling around, “But you asked for it!”

“Asked for what?” Dylas asked, raising an eyebrow dubiously.

Doug produced some string. He waved it at Dylas, then pulled his hair back and tied it up.

“Looks pretty good,” Dylas said, shrugging as much as his position on the bed would allow, “So what?”

“So what is hair tied back called?” Doug asked, a gleam in his eye.

“Oh, no,” Dylas said, covering his face as the answer hit him. “Oh, no.”

“A ponytail,” Doug said, relishing the word. “Pony. Tail.”

“No,” Dylas moaned. “I will kill you.”

“Not before I get to model this to everyone.”

“I'm going to eat so much bread,” Dylas said, taking his hands from his face just so that he could fix his most withering glare on Doug. “So much bread that you'll be stuck in bed for a week after you get your body back.”

“Don't you dare!” Doug gasped, dropping the ponytail that he'd been holding out for inspection.

“Every bag of flour in the town,” Dylas said. “I will turn each one into bread and I will eat it!”

“You monster!”

“That's right,” Dylas said, grinning. “I'm going to destroy you from the inside out.”

Doug grabbed a pair of scissors. Dylas half-expected Doug to try and stab him while he was still immobile and made a vain attempt to get up, out of the way, but Doug brought the scissors to his own head.

“I can cut off your precious hair in one snip!”

“No!” Dylas lunged forward, only for his stomach to clench hard and punish him for the exertion. He clutched it with one hand as he reached for the scissors with the other. “Don't – don't do that!”

“Boys!” Nancy said, appearing from behind the bookcase that doubled as a divider. “Do I have to get Forte in here to keep you in check?” The expressions on their faces were answer enough. “Then you had better settle down!”

“Okay,” Doug said, meekly setting the scissors down where he'd found them.

“Sorry,” Dylas mumbled.

“Just keep it down,” she warned. “Don't make me tell Porcoline and Blossom that you've been causing a ruckus in here.”

She disappeared once more and Doug let out a breath of relief. He picked at the patches of fluff he'd glued to his arm, loosening them from the skin and peeling them away. Dylas watched him idly. Doug chuckled.

“I can't believe you fell for this,” he said, setting a scrap of loose fluff beside him on the bed.

“I can't believe you ate something that had had been sitting on the floor for who knows how long,” Dylas said.

“Yeah, I guess we can both be a bit dumb,” Doug said. “So how do you want to celebrate finally getting our own bodies back?”

“Huh?”

“It kind of put a damper on that whole new year thing, right?” Doug said. “So we should do something to make up for that.”

“I dunno,” Dylas said, his stomach churning in a way that felt different to the pain from before. He hadn't succeeded in his first plan, to make a love potion and transfer his affections somewhere else, and it wasn't likely that he'd be able to afford to buy one in a reasonable time frame. Every day that passed would just lead to more risks of revealing his affections. There was another option, one that lurked in the shadows of his mind, but he didn't dare pay it consideration yet.

“What's with you?” Doug asked. “You seem really far away lately unless I piss you off.”

Then again, with Doug being unusually perceptive, perhaps consideration was necessary. Dylas sighed. He loved his life here, but perhaps it was best to leave it while it was still a sweet memory instead of soured by the hatred Doug would feel for him if he ever found out what he was really hiding.

“I'm thinking of moving,” he said.


	3. Chapter 3

“Huh?” Doug said, his jaw dropping. He stopped picking at the fur he'd stuck to his arm and gawked at Dylas. “What was that?”

“I'm thinking of moving,” Dylas said, hoping Doug wouldn't notice his toes squirming. Luckily, Doug's gaze was locked on Dylas's face (which was actually Doug's face, thanks to the potion Vishnal had accidentally made, so Dylas couldn't imagine it being that interesting to stare at for Doug).

“No, no, no,” Doug said, shaking his head.

“Uh, what?”

“No, you're not,” Doug said, glaring at Dylas. “You're not moving. You? Move? Away from here?” He barked a bitter laugh as he crossed his arms over his chest. “No. Why'd you even think about such a dumb thing anyway?”

“I wasn't asking for your opinion,” Dylas said, startled by the onslaught.

“Yeah, well, you got it,” Doug said. “You think you'd get a place and a job as cushy as you have now somewhere else?”

“No, but-”

“What would Porcoline and Margaret do without you? What would the town do without you?” Doug spread his arms wide. “You think we want to go back to trying to grab our plates from the counter before Porcoline can eat them?”

“Not really-”

“And anyway,” Doug interjected, refusing to let Dylas weasel in with any naughty reasons or logic, “Selphia has the highest ratio of water to town in the kingdom, so you'd be bored stiff fishing anywhere else after living here.”

Dylas raised his eyebrows. He'd never heard that factoid before, not even from Kiel or Arthur, who he'd expect to spout off something like that. 

“Is that true?” he asked.

“Almost definitely mostly true,” Doug said. Dylas's brow creased; he was fairly sure that wasn't actually a 'yes'. “So why move to some craphole where you'd have to live in a closet and never get to fish, while leaving us all to get our hands bitten off if we want to get fed? That's a stupid idea. Don't do it.”

“I'm pretty sure I could find somewhere else that I could fish,” Dylas said, slowly edging the sentence out. He was surprised that Doug actually let him finish one at last.

“Yeah, in a puddle, maybe,” Doug said. “If you were lucky.”

“Why do you care so much?”

“I don't!” Doug said. He scratched at the fur that was still stuck to his arm. “But it'd really inconvenience people here and you'd be miserable, so why bother?”

“I feel like a change,” Dylas said, wishing he'd thought of a cover story before blurting his plan out to Doug. The excuse felt weak to him and from the dismissive wave of a hand Doug made, Dylas could tell Doug felt the same way.

“So take up a new hobby.”

“Like what?”

“Like, um,” Doug floundered. “Bird watching? There are lots of birds here!”

“I'm not going to sit around and watch birds!” Dylas scoffed.

“You sit around and fish!” Doug said. “It's practically the same thing.”

“You won't be saying that next time you want tempura.”

“If you're even around next time I want a tempura bowl, you mean!”

“Is that what this is about?” Dylas asked, forcing himself to sit up. He couldn't argue with Doug like this while lying down. “You're worried that I won't be around to make you food?”

“Oh, come on,” Doug said, clicking his tongue in exasperation. “Like you make me food enough for that to matter.”

“Now you're hinting that you want me to make you more food!”

“No, you silly pony, I'm saying that you should stay!”

“To make you food,” Dylas insisted. “That's why you care. Because your tummy might be a little emptier.”

“You're the thickest person I've ever met,” Doug spat, leaping to his feet. “Think what you want; I'm out.”

“You're supposed to stay in here for observation!” Dylas yelled after Doug's retreating figure. Doug made a rude hand gesture without bothering to turn around. 

Nancy peeked her head around the bookshelf. Dylas braced himself for a telling off, but she smiled gently at him.

“Is everything okay?” she asked. “That seemed rather...different to your usual fights.”

“Yeah, it's fine,” Dylas said, though he wasn't sure he was telling the truth. “Doug was just thinking with his stomach as usual.”

“Is that so?” Nancy asked. She chewed her lip and glanced at the clinic entrance. Dylas craned his neck around the bookcase, as if hoping that maybe Doug was just blowing off steam outside, but there was no sign of him by the door that had been left wide open.

The restaurant had closed by the time the pain in Dylas's stomach had subsided from agony to merely painful. Dylas intended to go straight to his room and spend the remainder of the day curled up with a good book but raised voices from Arthur's study caught his attention. One stuck out in particular – his own, currently being manned by Doug.

“What do you mean it won't work?” he yelled. Dylas tiptoed over to the doorway, curious about what was going on but unwilling to be dragged into whatever chaos Doug was currently causing.

“You are aware that fish don't spawn naturally in ponds?” Arthur asked, rubbing his temples. He had his glasses pushed on top of his head. “Turning the town square into a massive pond would not only prevent most of our holiday activities but it's also pointless. We have plenty of fishing spots and artificially creating a new one is unnecessary and a waste of funds.”

“But we have to!” Doug insisted. 

“Just buy shrimp for tempura from that guy in the baths if you're too lazy to catch them free range,” Dylas said, making Doug spin around. Arthur rested his forehead on steepled fingers, silently ducking out of the conversation. “Don't ask Arthur to make a kiddie fishing spot where your quarry can't escape.”

“This has nothing to do with tempura!”

“So why do you need a new place to fish?” Dylas asked. Doug's face flooded with colour until it nearly matched his hair. Dylas smiled, pleased that he had caught Doug out in a lie.

“Well, I gotta go,” Doug said, backing towards the door. “But Arthur, think about it? There's got to be something we can do.”

“I can think about it,” Arthur said. “But you should reconsider your methods.”

Doug grinned and gave Arthur a thumbs up. 

“Knew I could count on you!” he said. “Don't worry, though, this is all part of a several-pronged attack.”

“Attack on what?” Dylas asked. Doug jumped. He'd seemingly forgotten that Dylas was in the room with all the plans whizzing around his head.

“Something,” Doug said, his gaze shifting away from Dylas. “Anyway, 'night!”

He raced out. Arthur straightened up in his chair and started tidying up the papers on his desk, which were in uncharacteristic disarray.

“So,” Arthur said. “I hear you're thinking of moving?”

“I made one comment about it and he runs off to tell you?” Dylas asked, shaking his head. He leaned against the doorway and watched Arthur sort his paperwork. He knew better than to offer assistance; Arthur's filing methods gave him a headache.

“I'm fairly certain that I'm not the only person he's confided the news to,” Arthur said. Dylas groaned.

“He's always thinking with his stomach,” Dylas said. Arthur glanced up from his papers.

“You said something about tempura, didn't you?” he asked, setting the sheets down. “How does food factor into this?”

“He doesn't want me to move away because then I won't be about to feed him,” Dylas explained. Arthur slowly nodded his head.

“I see. Other than your secret birthday gifts, do you give him food often?”

“Well,” Dylas began, before noticing the problem with the question. “H-How do you know about that?” he stammered, a pink tinge crossing his pale cheeks. “The birthday thing.”

“The only person in town who is as terrible at subterfuge as you is Doug,” Arthur said, leaning back in his chair. “Possibly Illuminata on one of her worse days. I suspect Kiel and Amber would be similarly bad at it, also, but they at least have the sense not to even attempt it.”

“So everyone knows I leave him a present on his birthday?” Dylas asked, shrinking back towards the safety of the kitchen. “Oh, god.”

“Not quite everyone,” Arthur said. “I believe it is still a mystery to Doug.” Dylas grinned. “Which rather burns a hole into your food theory, doesn't it?”

“Oh,” Dylas said, the grin quickly wiped from his face. He chewed his lip thoughtfully. “I sometimes give him dishes I've been working on. Just to check that they're not poisonous!” he added hastily, worried that Arthur would read something into it that wasn't there. Or was it? He didn't even know any more.

“Naturally,” Arthur said, nodding serenely.

“And if he comes by when I'm practising cooking then I'll chuck some food his way to shut him up.”

“You don't think that maybe Doug's reaction is a little out of proportion to missing a couple of free meals a week?”

“Not really,” Dylas said. “He's a greedy pig. You know, I once made onigiri for a sleepover and he ate them all while my back was turned. He's nearly as bad as Porcoline.”

“Onigiri?” Arthur repeated, eyes wide. “What kind?”

“Uh, salmon?”

Arthur pursed his lips and put down the pen he had just begun idly twirling in his fingers. Dylas was puzzled by the reaction before he remembered that Arthur was also pretty fond of the snack.

“Is that so?” Arthur said. His eyes narrowed. “What a greedy pig indeed.”

“Are you okay?” Dylas asked.

“Oh, yes,” Arthur said. “I think perhaps I will wait to get back to Doug about his request. Let him stew on it for a day or so.”

“Huh?”

“Oh, nothing,” Arthur said, smiling brightly. “Just a little pettiness.”

“Okay,” Dylas said. He was adrift in the conversation but that wasn't too uncommon when he was talking to Arthur. “You want anything before I head to bed?”

“No, but your offer is deeply appreciated,” Arthur said. Dylas turned to leave. “Actually, no, there is one thing. Just something I should let you know.”

“Yeah?” Dylas asked, glancing over his shoulder.

“If you do decide to move, you will be missed,” Arthur said. “By myself and others, I'm sure.”

“Uh, thanks,” Dylas said, shrinking into the shadows of the unlit kitchen so that Arthur couldn't see his face. “I'll miss you too.”

“Good night, Dylas,” Arthur said, giving him one last smile before turning back to his work. 

Dylas crept away, thinking about what Arthur had said. Did Doug have a motive beyond keeping his stomach happy? What would it be if he did? Other than feeding him sometimes, the only favour Dylas did for Doug was helping him stock the general store on occasion. Yet Arthur seemed to be suggesting that there was something else that was making Doug react like this.

Dylas undressed in the dark, trying to preserve Doug's modesty as best he could, as he continued to ponder the question. He was probably spent the most time with Doug other than maybe Blossom. Arthur and Vishnal were usually busy with some work or another and Kiel and Leon gravitated together for reasons that neither Dylas nor Forte could fathom. Dylas knew now why he kept seeking Doug out, but he'd always assumed when Doug came to see him that he just had nothing better to do. 

Then there was the issue of Doug attempting to tame Thunderbolt, Dylas's monster form. Doug had been working quietly on that for a while, he said. Did he just not want Dylas to be able to leave before he got his punchline? Dylas didn't know and his head ached with all of these theories. He climbed into bed, letting the riddle rest until morning. 

Dylas dreamed of Doug, both of them reunited with their own bodies. Doug dragged him away from work, back to Doug's bedroom. After making a great show of slamming the door shut behind them, Doug peeled his shirt off and chucked it on the floor. 

“W-what are you doing?” Dylas spluttered.

“Seducing you,” Doug said, shrugging. “Duh.” 

He pushed Dylas so he landed on the bed, sitting in front of Doug. Dylas's head was at the perfect height for ogling Doug's crotch, so naturally he looked away. Doug took hold of Dylas's jaw and turned it to face him again.

“You wanna look?” Doug asked, running a hand down his own chest to squeeze the crotch of his trousers. “You can look.”

“Okay,” Dylas whispered, entranced. 

Doug circled his hand over his trousers, making his cock grow and strain against the material. Dylas leaned in, licking his lips. Doug hooked his thumbs into the waistband of his trousers and pushed them down, slowly, until his cock sprung out. Doug jutted his hips forward, the tip of his cock close enough for Dylas to taste with his tongue.

“You like this?” Doug asked. Dylas, lost for words, could only look up at Doug's cheeky grin and nod. “You can blow me.”

Dylas leaned in, eager to oblige, but Doug caught his head before he could press his lips to Doug's cock. He looked up at Doug, wide-eyed, needing explanation. Doug stroked his cheek softly.

“You can blow me,” Doug said, cupping his cock and thumbing the head teasingly, “If you promise to never move away.”

“Yeah, sure,” Dylas gabbled. 

“No moving?”

“No moving,” Dylas agreed. Doug took his hand from Dylas's face. Dylas rushed in, peppering kisses along Doug's short member. Doug groaned, arching his back and pushing his cock forward, closer to Dylas, who woke up to face tented bedsheets and a very notable absence of Doug.

He covered his eyes, groaning. It was nothing short of cruel of his subconscious to torment him like that, presenting him with the impossible. Sure, Doug might want him to stick around now, but that would change instantaneously if he had an inkling of how Dylas felt about him. He certainly wouldn't go dragging Dylas to his bed to change his mind.

His cock, hard and ignored, ached. Dylas slipped a hand into his pants almost reflexively to soothe it. He wrapped his fingers around the shaft. For a moment he was puzzled by the way it fit differently in his grip – more curved, definitely, and the ratio of fingers to thickness was off – then realised, horrified, that he was still in Doug's body. He jerked his hand away, face burning in the darkness. He was the worst of the worst, he decided, rolling onto his stomach to remove the temptation of touching himself again. 

But pressing the hard cock against his mattress inadvertently offered a different temptation. The thrill of the pressure rushed to his head and he ground his hips against the mattress again instinctively. The feeling was intoxicating and overpowered his better instincts. He jerked his hips against the mattress, hating himself a little more with each thrust, but the feeling was too addictive to resist.

He thought of Doug, of how he'd saucily seduced him in his dream, how he looked in swimming trunks as he tried to impress the girls, how his face lit up when he took a big bite of something delicious. Dylas bit his lip, clamping down the cries that were building up inside him, and envisioned a reality where confessing his love to Doug was the beginning to anything other than a tragedy.


	4. Chapter 4

Dylas had the next day off. After last night's vivid dream he wanted to crawl into a hole and hide from the world, but the world had other plans for him. Arthur popped into his room to lend him books on various places in the kingdom, just in case he was serious about his plans about moving, then started chatting about where he used to live. It was a very thoughtful gesture, but Dylas was not keen to start cementing plans for his self-imposed exile. 

He eventually escaped the conversation and fled into the streets, only to be cornered by Kiel. Kiel was much better at cornering people now he was in Leon's body. Kiel wanted to know where Dylas was going and why and would Dylas be his penpal? If Kiel hadn't been distracted by wanting to find out why Illuminata was hiding in the bushes, Dylas might never have got away.

After Porcoline collapsed on him in front of the palace, sobbing about he was going to miss his sweet waiter, Dylas decided that he would be better off leaving the town for the day. He prised himself from Porcoline's vice-like grip and slipped out of the front gates. 

Dylas took a deep breath of the fresh forest air. Other than the occasional bleating from the woolies, his surroundings were perfectly quiet. The conditions were ideal for fishing. Dylas settled down in front of a spring and let life pass him by as he fixated on the water before him.

A distressed bleat in the distance frightened off the first fish that hovered around his bait. Dylas glanced over his shoulder, in case anything unusual was afoot, but the landscape around him was just as still as it had been when he first sat down. He shrugged it off, guessing that a careless woolie had trodden on an ironleaf, and turned back to the water.

Something barrelled into his back and he crashed into the water. Dylas swam to the surface and pushed his slick locks of hair out of the way so he could figure out what had hit him. Some kind of monster, surely, because no human would be so senseless as to do that...except for the one currently erupting from the water. The one in his body.

“What the fuck, Doug?” Dylas yelled, throwing his fishing rod to the shore. “We could have drowned!”

“Illuminata told me!” Doug said. He was struggling to keep his body above water. He hadn't realised how much harder swimming in clothes was compared to swimming in just a pair of trunks. Dylas sighed and swam over to him. He wrapped an arm around Doug's waist (or, technically, the waist that Doug was currently using) and guided him to the shore. They clambered out of the water, shivering. 

“Illuminata told you what?” Dylas asked. “That I was fishing? Do I need permission for that now?”

“Huh?” Doug shook his head like a dog shaking itself dry. Dylas didn't appreciate being splattered with Doug's excess water but it was a minor offence compared to those that had preceded it. “No, she said that you were leaving town. And you had!” he added.

“To go fishing!”

“Yeah, well, I didn't know it was just fishing!”

“Did the fact that I was, I don't know, fishing not clear that up for you?”

“Like you wouldn't stop on your escape if you spotted a rare fish!”

Dylas wasn't sure he could argue about that. “You could have asked,” he said, tensely. “Rather than sending us both swimming.”

“I was worried!” Doug said. Dylas raised his eyebrows, prompting a more detailed response. “That – uh – you were running off with my body. To some place new.”

“I'm not going to move before we've switched back our bodies, if that's what you're asking,” Dylas said, wringing water out of Doug's long bangs. Doug copied him. 

“So you're planning to move straight after that?”

“I don't know,” Dylas said. “I guess? I don't have any other plans.”

“Oh,” Doug said, his shoulders sagging.

“Why is that a problem?” Dylas asked.

“It's not!” Doug insisted. “I mean – how do I know you're not going to run off with my body?”

“I promise I'm not going to abscond with it,” Dylas said. Doug stared at him blankly. Dylas managed a slight smile. “You don't know what abscond means? You really do need to pick up a book or two.”

“I do know!” Doug said. “But do you? Because I think you used it wrong.”

“Did not!”

“Did too!”

“Abscond means – it's like – leaving in a rush! And secretly!” Dylas said. “So I used it properly!”

“Ohhhh,” Doug said, nodding. “So that's what you thought it meant.”

“What do you mean, 'thought'?”

“Not important right now,” Doug said, waving a hand back and forth. “But how do I know you're not planning on running off with my body, huh?”

“You could trust me,” Dylas suggested. He didn't sound like he had much faith in himself. Who would trust him after what he did with Doug's body last night? He'd thought of a thousand excuses for what he'd done. He knew that without relief, he'd be more likely to get hard at inopportune times, which would be embarrassing for Doug if other people noticed. Besides, he hadn't actually touched him, not for more than a few seconds (discounting washing and other hygienic activities, which he assumed even the harshest judge would accept). He'd tried not to look, too, and mostly been successful. 

Perhaps Doug picked up on Dylas's lack of faith, because he merely nodded while gazing into the distance. Dylas couldn't enquire further because Doug issued a short, “Bye,” and in a flash he was gone, presumably back to Selphia. 

The remainder of Dylas's fishing was unfruitful. His rhythm was off, or something, and every time a fish bit at his bait he timed reeling it in all wrong. His stomach, which had anticipated a lavish lunch of sashimi, protested loudly. It was time to give up. He returned to town.

“Gotcha!” Doug yelled, pouncing on him as soon as he was through the city gates. He pulled Dylas's arm out and Dylas was too stunned to resist. When he saw the handcuffs snapping around his wrist he tried to pull it back, but it was too late. Doug snapped the other cuff around his wrist and grinned proudly down at him. “Now I don't need to worry about you skipping town!”

“You idiot!” Dylas yelled, clawing at the metal wring around his wrist. It didn't budge.

“Pretty solid, huh?” Doug asked. “I asked Leon, who said he knew a guy, and, well, I got these!”

“You realise we won't be able to do anything without each other now?”

“That's kind of the point,” Doug said, slowly. “I get to know where you are. Where my body is.”

“Where's the key?” Dylas demanded, running a finger over the small incision in the cuff.

“You think I'd keep something like that around where you could grab it?” Doug scoffed. “I threw it in the river as soon as I got the cuffs!”

“How will we go to the bathroom?” Dylas asked, running a hand through his air. Doug shrugged.

“We'll manage.”

“How will we sleep?”

“Sleepovers!”

“How are we going to get changed?”

“What do you mean?” Doug asked, frowning.

“Okay, imagine taking your shirt off,” Dylas said. Doug nodded. “Now remember that you tied our arms together, bonehead!”

“Ohhh,” Doug said, nodding. “Our shirts would get stuck along the arms that are tied together, right?” He laughed. “Whoops.”

“What do you mean, 'whoops'? We have to get this thing off right now!”

“Relax,” Doug said as Dylas hauled him toward's Bado's. “It's not like you want to strip off right now, is it?”

“That's not the point!”

Bado was nursing a fine juice when the two of them burst through his door. More accurately, Dylas burst in, in Doug's body, while Doug (in Dylas's body) lolled behind. 

“Bado!” Dylas yelled. It was horrifically reminiscent of the way Forte yelled his name when he was in trouble. His heart sank. “We need your help.”

He knew it. Work. He drained his juice and listened to their plight. He sensed some urgency on Dylas's part and a heck of a lot less from Doug. There were also some misconceptions to address. 

“Yeah,” Bado said, tilting the handcuffs this way and that, “I don't have anything that'll cut those right this second.”

“You don't?” Dylas yelled, throwing his hands to his head and pulling Doug's hand with it. “So what about next second?”

“It'll take a li'l while,” Bado said. “And I'll be needing some diamonds, probably. I think some are due tomorrow...”

“You think?” Dylas echoed.

“I guess we'll just have to have stick it out until then!” Doug chirped. 

“How'd this happen, anyway?” Bado asked. “Not that I want to know what you two were up to-”

“Nothing!” Doug interrupted, before Dylas had even figured out what Bado was hinting at. 

“But don't these things usually come with keys?” Bado continued.

“I threw that out,” Doug said, smugly. Bado's looked at him as if he was an idiot and not a master strategist. “So that Dylas can't get away!” 

“Uh, yeah, that is what those things are for,” Bado said.

Doug rolled his eyes. “It'll keep him from running off to another kingdom with my body.” Bado's brow creased. “You didn't hear? He's thinking of moving!”

“Oh, so there is someone in town you didn't tell,” Dylas said, his tongue tainting the words with acid. “And how quickly do you think I pack, anyway?”

“Gotta go!” Doug said, saluting Bado as he dragged Dylas back towards the door. “Thanks for your help, Bado!”

“You can't escape my questions, Doug!” Dylas yelled. “Not now that you've locked us together!”

Bado watched them depart with a shake of his head. How could people call his fixation on making money weird compared to their antics? But buried in their interaction had been a glimmer of an idea, one that was sure to make him a tidy profit indeed.

Back at Porcoline's house, Doug was making himself comfy in Dylas's bedroom. Dylas had little choice but to do the same as he could go no further than a foot away from Doug in any direction, but he wasn't comfortable at all. He wanted to get away from Doug so that he could crush these stupid affectionate feelings, but instead he was locked to him and couldn't even manage to muster up much anger towards him for it. Deep down, he supposed, he just wanted to spend what time they had left together, regardless of how dumb the circumstances might be.

Now that he'd fluffed up Dylas's pillows to his liking, Doug was rooting about the trinkets on the windowsill. His hands whizzed past the impressive ones, like the gold fishing trophies, and sought out the dumb little things Dylas had collected during his new life in Selphia. He plucked a squat clay doll into the air and held it out towards Dylas, who sucked in a lungful of air at how casual Doug could be with other people's treasures.

“What's this?” he asked.

“It's an antique that you should be handling more carefully!” Dylas snapped. Doug readjusted his grip.

“Okay, so what is it now?”

“Still an antique,” Dylas said. 

“Yeah, but why do you have a doll?” Doug asked. “And a funny looking one at that.”

“It was a prime export for Selphia,” Dylas said. “Back when – you know, before.”

“Before you became a horse,” Doug supplied. Dylas kicked his shin. “Ow!” Doug set the doll back down. “I dunno why you're so sensitive about the horse thing. Having a tail is pretty cool.”

“What?”

“You can push stuff around with it!” Doug said, grinning. “It's like a secret limb. You and Leon totally don't use them enough.”

“Because I don't want to draw people's attention to it.”

“Uh, no offence, but I don't think it's going to raise any more eyebrows than your ears do already,” Doug said.

“Thanks,” Dylas grumbled. “Maybe I'll invest in a bandanna to cover them when I get my body back.”

“Wouldn't they stick out too much for that?” Doug asked, running his hands over the soft tufts of dense fur on his ears. Dylas scowled at him. “Yeah, I think they would.”

“Then I'll get some hair clips and pin them down,” Dylas said. 

“Or you could flaunt them 'cause they're cool,” Doug said. “Plus your idea is dumb and you wouldn't be able to hear properly.”

“You're dumb!”

“So why are you moving?” Doug asked.

“Huh?” Dylas blinked, surprised at the speedy switch of conversation. “Because I want to.”

“Come on, you're soppy about this place,” Doug said, twisting around to look at Dylas fully. “There's got to be something in particular that's made you think up this dumb moving idea.”

It was uncharacteristically observant of Doug to have figured that out. Given that he was trying to rope Arthur into enticing Dylas not to move and seemed to have paid Illuminata to follow him, it was likely that gone to other people for advice on the matter too. He wondered which of them had come so close to cracking his motives.

“Why does that matter to you?” he deflected.

“If I know what's made you want to move I can fix it, can't I?”

“Why do you want to?” Dylas asked, cocking his head to the side. “It's not like I can pack up and find a place to move before Jones has our bodies swapped back, so that can't really be worrying you.”

“Why do you think, dumbass?” Doug said, turning his pink-tinged face away from Dylas. “I'd miss you if you went.”

“Enough to risk locking us together permanently?”

“Eh, I figured Bado would be able to sort it out sooner or later,” Doug said, shrugging. “Anyway, I answered your questions, so you've gotta answer mine!”

“I never agreed to that!”

“C'mon!” Doug said, punching Dylas in the arm. “I opened up to you about stupid feelings! The least you can do is tell me why you want to move.”

He shuffled closer to Dylas. They had already been pretty close, sitting side by side on the bed (the only furniture Dylas owned big enough for them both to sit on, Doug had pointed out at the time), but now Dylas would only have to tilt his head upwards a little to plant a kiss on Doug's cheek. It was tempting, even with the body-switch. If they'd been back in their actual bodies, Dylas wasn't sure he'd be able to resist. 

“Please?” Doug asked. Dylas's mind whirled as he tried to concoct a lie but his lips were already parting to spill the truth.

There was a rap on the door. Leon entered, jingling a set of tiny keys. 

“I heard that you might be in need of these,” he said. Dylas jumped up, forgetting that his arm was tied to Doug's, who yelped as his arm was yanked away. 

“Did you get them from the river?” Dylas asked, his hand outstretched. Leon dropped them into his open palm with a chuckle.

“God, no,” he said. “I sent Vishnal to get them from the guy Doug got the first pair from.”

“The handcuffs use the same keys?” Doug asked, dismayed.

Dylas jammed the key into its hole and spun it around in his fingers. The handcuffs clicked and the metal arm holding his wrist in place fell back. Dylas ripped his hand free from the weakened restraint and threw the keys to Doug, who fumbled the catch.

“Why send Vishnal?” Dylas asked, adrenaline coursing through him. He'd so close to spilling his secret to Doug but Leon, wonderful Leon, had ridden in to save the day. 

“Would it do to have me visit such a sordid figure in Arthur's body?” Leon said, smiling. “That wouldn't fit his regal reputation.”

“So you sent Vishnal and ruined Kiel's reputation,” Doug grumbled. “Forte's going to dice you up when she finds out.”

“If,” Leon said.

“When,” Doug replied, darkly. 

“And here I was thinking I'd done you both a favour,” Leon said. “I'm surprised that Dylas didn't wring your neck before I saved the day.”

“Yeah, well, we were sorting some stuff out,” Doug said, dropping the handcuffs on the bed. “So now you've saved us you can piss off again.”

“I think I'll head out too,” Dylas said, stretching both his arms out and relishing his regained freedom. 

“But you didn't answer me!” Doug yelled. 

“Oh well,” Dylas said, picking up his fishing rod. “See you.” He teleported to the town gates before Doug could respond. That had been a close call. Too close. He wandered off to find a spot to fish – but also to work on a fake reason for moving that would sound plausible.


End file.
